WWE News: Ric Flair Prefers Roman Reigns Over Finn Balor
When the WWE pretty much rebooted the entire company last week, the response was phenomenal. WWE Monday Night Raw gave the world two new major stars in new women’s champion, Sasha Banks, and in the new world title contender, Finn Balor. WWE Smackdown Live put Dolph Ziggler back in the main event scene and featured Dean Ambrose as WWE World Champion. It really felt like a new era in the WWE.
However, 411mania reported that WWE Hall of Fame legend “Nature Boy” Ric Flair only liked half of the equation. While he loved Dolph Ziggler getting back into the world title scene, Flair said that he didn’t think Finn Balor belonged there, and Roman Reigns should still be competing for the top title on WWE Monday Night Raw.
“I think Finn Bálor is great too. I just think you’ve got a legitimate heavyweight in Seth Rollins, a legitimate heavyweight in Roman Reigns, and I don’t think we’ll ever see the day, and I could be totally wrong, that a cruiserweight will ever main event a WrestleMania.”
That is where a lot of the problems lie. Vince McMahon has always been a fan of big man wrestlers, and Finn Balor is the exact opposite. Balor makes Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart look like big wrestlers, and while Daniel Bryan was able to get to the top of the mountain, opinions like the one Ric Flair has might hold him down.
However, through his tenure at NXT, Finn Balor was never once booked like a cruiserweight. While WWE Monday Night Raw will host the cruiserweight division, Balor is not part of that, and he is as much a part of the main roster of talent as guys like Seth Rollins, who Ric Flair calls a heavyweight compared to Balor.
Finn Balor Says This Is Just The Beginning, Comments On Time In WWE NXT And Monday's #RAW… https://t.co/VFwYeyeSIg
— WrestlingINC.com (@WrestlingInc) July 27, 2016
Ric Flair has seen a lot of wrestlers come and go in the WWE, and he just doesn’t see Finn Balor as a main event talent. However, Flair did see Balor as a major talent in the ring and did heap some praise on a man that he said he has never really personally met outside of a “hello.”
“Finn Bálor reminds me of ‘The Dynamite Kid’. Does that make sense? They’re very similar in appearance, same kind of work, and, I mean, he’s a great performer. God, I’m certainly not taking anything away from his performance or the match, but I’m a fan of Roman Reigns, so I’m saying something that I’m partial about.”
Ric Flair pointed out Roman Reigns’ size, good looks, self-confidence, and even went as far as to call Reigns well spoken, which was always one of the fan’s complaints about Reigns. Flair sees Reigns as a main event star, and Balor as a strong hand and nothing more. Flair even places Dolph Ziggler above Balor in terms of main event talent.
“If I’m looking at what’s going to draw money, what I would pay to see, I would pay to see Dolph against Ambrose before I’d pay to see Finn Bálor against Seth Rollins.”
However, it looks like the WWE is not in agreement with Ric Flair on this at the moment. Rajah.com reported that it was not Triple H who pushed the new talent to the top in the new WWE, but was Vince McMahon who made the call to put Finn Balor and Dolph Ziggler in the main events and hold back on Roman Reigns for now.
Not only did Finn Balor beat Roman Reigns on WWE Monday Night Raw to get into the main event match with Seth Rollins at SummerSlam, but he beat Reigns cleanly without any controversy. Whether this was punishment for Reigns failed drug tests or just a way to show faith in Finn Balor and an attempt to build a new star, the result was the same.
The WWE is entering a new era, and men like Finn Balor are there to lead the way. It just isn’t something Ric Flair would have booked if he were in charge of the WWE.
[Image via WWE]
